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Posted by Don Young on June 16, 2008, 10:50 pm
> We had a new roof put on the house a few months ago which included new
> roof boards and
> shingles on the back porch. This porch is attached to the kitchen with a
> door leading from
> the kitchen to the porch.
>
> Before the back porch roof was done, the rain leaked in between the bricks
> and the metal
> flashing against the house at the top of the roof, down onto the door sill
> from the
> kitchen to the porch and onto the porch itself.
>
> The new roof and flashing solved the problem - on the outside anyway but
> now the rain is
> coming down the inside! The curtain on the window in the door was soaking
> wet last night
> during a heavy rainfall. There were also drops of water hanging from the
> underside of the
> trim across the top of the door on the inside of the house.
>
> The big question is where is it coming in!! I took off the top piece of
> door frame trim,
> the piece that runs across the top of the door, dug away at the plaster
> beneath and could
> see a trickle of water coming down between the wood lathes and the brick
> but the plaster
> is wet all across the top width of the door.
>
> The house walls are made of two rows of brick, a rough inside course and a
> good outside
> one right up against each other. So even if enough mortar was missing
> between the bricks
> on the outside course in places, it would still have to leak through the
> inside course to
> get in behind the drywall, which sounds next to impossible.
>
> Could the roofers have fired in a nail to attach the new flashing, long
> enough to
> penetrate two courses of brick? I could tear down the inside wall to the
> point where the
> water is entering the inside of the house but surely caulking it wouldn't
> solve the
> problem.
>
> Any ideas?
Be aware that bricks and mortar are not necessarily water tight. Water will
sometimes soak through them and some hidden walls are carelessly built with
gaps in them. Masonry walls generally should have waterproof membranes,
flashing, and weep holes to control any rain or condensation that gets
behind the masonry.
Don Young
Don Young
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